Malum

I have taught a course on “Evil and Human Suffering” several times, and I’ve just found my new course textbook in Ingolf Dalferth’s Malum: A Theological Hermeneutics of Evil. Much of the text’s methodology and guiding terminology come from the phenomenological-hermeneutical tradition (i.e., “lifeworld,” “horizon,” “orientation formula,” etc.). In addition, Dalferth provides masterful treatments of Christian epistemology, philosophy of religion, and historical theology. No matter the approach, Dalferth’s clear definitions and frequent section summaries make the text clearly structured, and consistently approachable for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students alike.

In near-encyclopedic fashion, Dalferth engages with the breadth of Christian philosophical discussion of evil and all the ills that people suffer. Many books on evil are at pains to differentiate how evil is different from mere badness. On the other hand, the author’s approach is critically inclusive. What appears as evil from a first-person perspective might be merely unfortunate to the third-person observer. No matter what, the sufferer still experiences evils as an incomprehensible eruption in their daily life. Dalferth aims to include happenings, experiences, and understandings of evil from all perspectives—sufferers, inflictors, and observers. If this sounds too complicated, the Latin term malum of the book’s title refers to both the type and token of evil; both the concept of Evil itself and its various manifestations in individual lifeworlds are included in malum. Dalferth refreshingly clarifies his broad thesis: “The problem of Evil (in the singular) does not exist; there are only many problems concerned with many instances of evil” (9).

Dalferth’s text is divided into three parts, which largely correspond to how people encounter evil. The first part examines evil as it happens externally in the world. The second part focuses on evil as we experience it inwardly. Lastly, Dalferth examines how internal and external experiences of evil impact the ways we understand God in relation to malum.

In the first part (entitled “Evil as a Problem”), Dalferth critiques philosophical analyses of evil in conceptual terms; in other words, malum as a problem of thought. Other scholars’ analyses of the “problem of evil” focus on logical propositions leading to the denial of God’s benevolent existence. In sum, if God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving, why do evil and human suffering exist? Yet Dalferth is quick to point out that such logical and epistemological accounts can seem sterile and threaten to perpetuate harm by turning incomprehensible evils into mere happenings with causal explanations. If evils can be justified, are they still evil? Can evil simply be explained away? An empirical approach and a keen eye for empathy balance and counteract logical-epistemological approaches to the problem of evil, both in this part and throughout the text of Malum as a whole.

Malum’s second part, entitled “Thinking Evil,” is divided among three subsections that respectively describe malum as the privation of good (privatio boni), as evil deeds (malefactum), and as “Unfaith” in Dalferth’s unique hermeneutical conception.

The initial privatio boni subsection takes a largely historical look at conceptions of evil-as-privation from Neoplatonic monism to Kant’s critical philosophy. To Dalferth, evil-as-privation tends to promote God’s powerful love and the goodness of Creation to such an extent that evil’s existence and suffering’s reality are denied. In the malefactum subsection, Dalferth focuses on evil in terms of human actions, will, and freedom, spending the bulk of this subsection painstakingly analyzing Kantian practical reasoning. He correctively addresses the dangers of giving human freedom and will too much power over against God’s freedom and will in Christian theology.

In the third subsection of “Thinking Evil,” Dalferth argues that a Christian comes to faith from unfaith, but this movement is a “freedom event” in which God’s gracious gift of faith is given, even if the receiver is unwilling to receive it (274). This passivity (or potentiality) is also what enables evil to be experienced or suffered. Whereas the previous subsections describe malum in active terms, Dalferth’s unfaith is a “basic existential constitution” of people’s lives as sinners and as sinned-against (249). What are we to do when we experience malum in our lives?

Malum’s third part (entitled “Orienting Strategies for Dealing with Evil”) picks up where the second part leaves off. Throughout this section, malum is characterized as incomprehensible. In the face of incomprehensibility, we use hermeneutical tools in two interwoven ways: to define something as evil but also to define evil as something. “Religious effort aims not at eliminating what is incomprehensible and ungraspable but at reorienting those to whom it happens…[We] learn to understand ourselves in new and different ways in confronting the ungraspable and incomprehensible” (423-4). In a more theological vein, Dalferth’s stated thesis is to offer a specifically Christian “orientation formula” that tries to make sense of experiences of Evil and God in mutually reinforcing interpretation, “for understanding evil with reference to God and God with reference to evil” (11). 

Dalferth’s exhaustive footnotes contain a treasure trove of resources and further arguments. However, there are several typographical errors that distract the careful reader at inopportune times when precision is of utmost importance. For example, a footnote relating to the distinction between privatio boni and absentia debiti boni describes the latter “not only as something that one does not have but as something that one does not one [sic] have although should and could have it” (43n91). Despite several such errata, Malum is a triumph of clarity and its author and translator, Nils C. Schott, are to be congratulated.

With Malum, Dalferth responds to overly broad and abstractly philosophical treatments of evil and theodicy. To Dalferth, Christianity views Evil as something already overcome in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This volume combines crystal-clear conceptual analysis with deeply inspirational theological reflection and existential orientation. What further sets this account apart is the belief that a theological hermeneutics of evil shouldn’t stop with mere interpretation. Rather Dalferth builds foundations for providing consolation to ourselves and others in experiences of malum.

David Greder is an associate professor of religion and philosophy at Waldorf University.

David Greder

Date Of Review:

August 14, 2024